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Summary
NPR Best Books of 2019
Chicago Tribune Best Books of 2019
Chicago Review of Books Best Poetry Book of 2019
O Magazine Best Books by Women of Summer 2019
The Millions Must-Read Poetry of June 2019
LitHub Most Anticipated Reads of Summer 2019
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event--which lasted eight days and resulted in thirty-eight deaths and almost 500 injuries--through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history, and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
During her research for Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side (2018), sociologist, educator, and versatile writer Ewing encountered a 1922 government commissioned report titled The Negro in Chicago: A Study on Race Relations and a Race Riot. To her surprise, as she explains in the introduction to her second book of poetry, following Electric Arches (2017), it turned out to contain inspiring passages: They were so narrative, so evocative, so imagistic. Ewing was particularly struck by the report's coverage of the 1919 race riot that began during a July heat wave, after Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old African American swimming in Lake Michigan, drowned when white men hurled stones at him, and the police failed to act. Ultimately dozens of people died, more than 500 were injured, and hundreds of homes and businesses were decimated.Ewing felt compelled to enter into a conversation with the report, after realizing, as did another Chicago writer, Claire Hartfield, author of the YA book, A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 (2018), that the full story of the riot remains little known. Ewing could have written a history in the vein of Cameron McWhirter's Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America (2011). Instead, she took up her poet's pen and created exquisitely distilled lyrics, most in response to brief excerpts from the report. These clarion and haunting poems some psalm-like, others percussive, even concussive, all technically brilliant and sure to galvanize adults and teens alike incisively and resoundingly evoke the promise and betrayal of the Great Migration and the everyday struggles of Chicago's Black community against vicious and violent racism. The riot a century ago, Ewing writes, left an indelible mark on the city, which she gracefully, imaginatively, and searingly illuminates with hope for a more just future.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2019 Booklist